Woman Refunded Half Her Airfare After Being Forced To Sit Next To A Corpse For 10 Hours

A Swedish woman was in a bit of a troubling situation, after her rowmate died shortly after take off on a Kenya Airways flight. She flew from Europe to Tanzania and because there were no other seats available, she was stuck next to him. In response to the unfortunate circumstance, the airline has refunded half of her airfare.

According to a report in the Expressen daily, via The Local, the woman said she realized her fellow passenger wasn’t feeling too well when they boarded in Amsterdam.

“He was sweating and was having convulsions,” she said, adding that the plane took off anyway.

Shortly after the plane was airborne, the staff asked for medical help to do everything they could for the man, including a cardiac massage. He died a few hours later. The woman said she was then obliged to sit next to the dead man for the remainder of the overnight flight.

“Of course it was unpleasant, but I am not a person who makes a fuss,” she told the paper.

Since she had somewhat of a dissatisfactory experience, she sought compensation from the airline. After months of back and forth, she was finally refunded about $713 — roughly half the cost of her airfare.
Which is apparently totally cool with her.

If this were an American, she would be traumatized, fighting off night terrors, and unable to perform day-to-day activities. There would be so much pain and suffering.

Hell, even I think that the compensation was a little weak – couldn’t you have refunded the woman the entire cost of her ticket – but I’m happy that she received compensation that was satisfactory for her.

There are very few Americans who go to Tanzania, perhaps those hard willed mission workers or tourists, they’re around death and poverty all the time. If you survive talking a piss at the Dar-Es-Sallam airport, the thought of a dead corpse next to you really won’t bother you. American or otherwise.

you know corpses evacuate themselves as sphincters all over the body stop doing their job right? I just rather take a baby than THAT experience, never mind the fact of having a corpse, sitting next to you might actually do some business on your head.

Why couldn’t the flight crew have removed the corpse to another section of the aircraft, instead of letting it sit there? Couldn’t they have wrapped him in a blanket and maybe put him in the galley until the plane landed?

And why would they let an obviously sick person, who was sweating and having convulsions, on the plane in the first place? How did the airline/flight crew know what was really wrong with him? He could have had a communicable disease.

Well, they originally planned to put dark sunglasses on him and then have a series of hilarious antics where they would try to trick bystander into thinking he’s alive, but the plane was too full for that nonsense.

I agree they probably should have checked him out before letting him board, but I think there’s barely room in the galley for a live, upright body, much less a dead one. Space on planes is at a premium, as any passenger over 5’6″ can tell you. :)

Ever deal with a dead body before? It’s a whole to-do with police, detectives, and the coroner to determine there was no foul play. It’s not simply “let’s roll him out.” If they had disturbed the body they would be in for a long night of questions. Just speaking from experience.

On the other part, I think you are asking a sky waitress to put on a doctor role which I don’t think is her job. How about ticket agent, security, etc? They have more authority and experience with this and would be my first target for blame.

Actually, part of a flight attendant’s job is to “put on a doctor role”. For one, they have to administer first aid to the best of their abilities in any situation, as a doctor or nurse won’t happen to be on the passenger manifest on every flight. For another, they’re expected to be able to assess whether a passenger is sick enough to possibly require an emergency landing, and the decision to deny them boarding is up to them, the same as it is with passengers who are drunk. (Ultimately, it’s up to the pilot, but they’re not going to see every passenger boarding.) There have been many cases where a passenger who was getting over a cold or food poisoning but looked like death was denied boarding because the crew was afraid they’d get too sick in-flight. Unfortunately they’re not going to catch everything in the few minutes before take-off, and if all they saw was this guy sweating they could have chalked it up to nerves.

Really? We’re making stuff up now just so someone has a chance to blame the OP? The article says that the flight attendants were there when the man was sweating and having convulsions, but that the flight took off anyway.

“I interpretted this to be that she saw the man gaving (sic) convulsions and said NOTHING to the flight staff.”

What did you want her to say? The flight attendants were already there and already knew about the situation. Unless the article also said that the woman was a doctor, I don’t know what your reasons are for thinking she should have been second guessing the flight crew.

Where does it say she “did nothing”? From the article: “He was sweating and was having convulsions,” she told SR, adding that although the flight attendants were present, the plane took off all the same.”

This implies that the flight attendants WERE aware of his condition before takeoff (but chose not to act on it until after the plane was airborne), so I’m not sure what your argument is. It doesn’t directly state that she was the one who told them (or if flight staff just discovered his condition making their rounds, or if another passenger told them) but either way the flight staff did know BEFORE take off, so I’m not sure what you expected her to do beyond that point. I doubt that the women was a doctor.

And yet when I pointed out that everybody on my flight to Long Beach was an evil skeleton sent to drag me into Hell, everybody was all “calm down, sir” and “please put your pants on” and “[the sound of an air marshal’s fist hitting me in the throat].” Still waiting for that refund.

She – and the surrounding passengers, if any – may have had more than just the physical presence of the deceased as a problem. Freshly deceased often void at the time of their passing, and the odor of bodily fluids/solids would be disgusting enough to warrant a full refund at the minimum.

But, other than that, at least she didn’t have to put up with annoying chatter from an obnoxious passenger who just HAS to talk to you.

“But, other than that, at least she didn’t have to put up with annoying chatter from an obnoxious passenger who just HAS to talk to you.”

Yeah man, I HATE human contact. All I wanted to do was finish this copy of Fifty Shades of Grey and this person next to me keeps trying to break the desperate silence of human existence by communicating with another living soul. How dare they!

We have every right to be annoyed by someone who won’t leave us alone. You’re assuming that we don’t have enough human contact normally and that we’re hermits because we don’t want to talk to a stranger. My job is to talk to strangers, sometimes I just want peace.

Completely unrelated, but is anyone else getting page load errors after the switch to WordPress? About every other page load (whether opening an article or refreshing the main page) results in the following:
A temporary error has occurred. If the problem persists, please contact support@wpengine.com or check our status blog for updates.

Hah, and when I tried to post that comment, it spun for 3 minutes then came back with a 502 error, although it apparently still posted because when I tried to refresh it told me I was trying to post a duplicate comment. So at least there’s that.

“With Kenya Airways staff seemingly baffled by the events and their next course of action, Pettersson was obliged to sit only a narrow aisle away from the dead man for the remainder of her overnight flight.”

I initially thought she had to literally sit next to him, which would have been, just eww. It seems at least that she got to move across the aisle, which, while not great, is at least better.

I can’t imagine having to sit next to a dead person, because, as pointed out above, they do tend to release their bowels. Another reason not to put them in the galley, next to food? Double ewwww!

That said, I agree that had this been an American, it would have been a huge lawsuit with the passenger asking for millions for “pain and suffering.” The difference between American’s use of litigation and European’s is night and day.

Okay….the guy was obviously ill when he got on the plane, then croaked soon after takeoff.

Two BIG issues nobody has posted yet:

Someone needs to tell the retaded African flight crew there’s something called an EMERGENCY LANDING. Sinply radio the nearest airport, land and have the corpse removed. If African pilots are that stupid, it’s no wonder their airliners crash more often than those on any other continent.

IT might also be a good idea to figure out WHAT THIS GUY DIED FROM. Since he had fever and sweats before going stiff, things like Monkey Pox and Ebola Virus come to mind. This woman (along with everyone else on the plane) may now be walking disease time bombs.

She should have been issued an immediate refund for the entire cost of the flight and
given a free round-trip 1st class ticket. That would have been the right thing to do and
just how often is this going to happen? Not often. The airline could have scored big with
treating her right. Sigh. Bastards.

Believe it or not, this very topic is mentiioned in the current issue of Mental Floss (“10 Shocking Secrets of Flight Attendants”). According to the flight attendant who provided the information in the article, nobody officially dies during a flight unless there is a doctor on board to make the pronouncement. Apparently the only commerical airline actually prepared for this situation is Singapore Airlines, whose aircraft have a “corpse cupboard.” If you’re on another airline and the guy next to you happens to get his own pair of wings (not pilot’s wings), you’d best hope there is an empty row of seats somewhere.

The article also mentions that people sometimes try to smuggle dead bodies on to flights because shipping dead bodies is really expensive — up to $5000, depending on the destination. One guy actually stuffed his dead mother into a garment bag and tried to sneak her on to a flight. Doesn’t say how he got her to meet the size requirements, which has to be difficult once rigor mortis sets in.